Santa Cruz, university to take water case to Supreme Court

SANTA CRUZ -- The city of Santa Cruz will soon file a petition to the state's top justices, seeking review of a lower court's decision to reject the environmental analysis underpinning controversial university growth plans.

Sabrina Teller, an attorney with the city-contracted firm Remy Moose Manley in Sacramento, said Wednesday a petition will be filed with the Supreme Court by April 2. The move comes after a panel of the 6th District Court of Appeal denied a second petition to reconsider an invalidation of the environmental impact report for UC Santa Cruz's north campus project.

Teller acknowledged the high court is unlikely to take the case but said the petition is worth pursuing because the appellate decision contained "internal inconsistencies."

In December, a trio of appellate judges ruled in favor of Habitat and Watershed Caretakers, saying the environmental study was flawed because it inaccurately described why Santa Cruz agreed to expand water and sewer to UCSC. The appellate decision overturned a 2010 ruling by Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Timothy Volkmann.

After the city and university requested a rehearing, the appellate judges revised their decision in February but said the environmental report was still invalid because it failed to study a provision of less water. The judges said that omission constrained the Local Agency Formation Commission charged with approving an extension of the city's drought-prone water service area.

"The court appears to be overstepping," Teller said, by insisting UCSC and the city study the impacts of an alternative the two already determined would not fulfill terms of a 2008 settlement agreement. UCSC agreed in that pact to limit its growth through 2020 and house two-thirds of additional students in exchange for Santa Cruz supplying water to develop housing on university land outside the city's current boundaries.

"The consequence for denying growth in the north campus would be to push growth onto the existing campus, where it would demand the same amount of water and have potentially more impacts," Teller said. "That was the basis for (the city) approving the project in spite of its significant impacts."

Don Stevens, a Habitat and Watershed Caretakers spokesman, said the appellate court's second denial is a clear signal the city needs to reconsider its analysis of UCSC growth impacts. The group is the second to fight the water expansion out of fear the local supply -- restricted by drought and fish regulators -- can't accommodate thousands more students.

"If the overwhelming public turnout and opposition to the expansion expressed at past LAFCO meetings is any indication, the city might choose to pursue a different course in alignment with what its citizens want, rather than what the UCSC administration wants," Stevens said.

The cost of defending the suit and filing appellate requests is $153,610, according to the City Attorney's Office. There was no immediate estimate on the cost of a Supreme Court petition.